Mad River Weathers The Weather

At A Glance

Where

Mad River Glen, Waitsfield, VT, 05673

"Our season has been sporadic," Mad River Glen's Eric Friedman told OnTheSnow the other day.

"We had a decent Christmas week, then the wheels came off for New Year's, with a horrendous rain storm which knocked us back to almost nothing. It's back to awesome right now. I'll tell you something, we've gotten 4 feet of snow since Sunday, it just hasn't stopped," Friedman said.

Mad River used its limited snowmaking to get the practice slope open for children's programs, after the horrendous rain and before the magnificent powder snow of the past week.

"We got 18 inches of powder Sunday night (Jan. 9) but it was the lightest, fluffiest champagne powder, which in places was dust on crust. It was good in places, waist deep, but in other places you're hitting bottom. Then it just kept coming," Friedman said. "It was sunny and still snowing."

He backed up that claim with this: Lars Ayers, son of Mad River's patrol director, who grew up skiing Mad River, just won the Canadian Freeskiing Championship. Moreover, two other MRG skiers placed in the top 16: Ryan Hawks was 13th, and Dylan Crossman was 16th.

"We were the only Eastern area represented," Friedman said.

More good news? "This year is a testament to the viability of the Co-op," Friedman said. "We're pretty much at budget now, doing OK financially, which is really, really remarkable. We really skinny down, we don't owe money, don't pay debt service to anyone, it's remarkable, and you won't hear any other ski area marketing people say that," he said.